Stosh Finds Common Ground with Bush

George Bush says people should shop for medical care as they do for deodorant or kosher pickles. One more bad idea from his feeble mind.

But under our present system, maybe he has half a point: the prices are hidden from the consumer. Remind me, why is that?

I thought about this yesterday, two months after my one-day trip to the hospital. In two months I had received only one bill; it was from the hospital, which seemed to assigned a portion of the bill to me in the most arbitrary way. And not a word from Blue Cross. This surprised this healthcare virgin; I thought my mail box would runneth over with paper.

So I called Blue Cross. The person on the line was not Nice. Maybe Nice was on vacation, and Crisp was filling in. Ms. Crisp seemed shocked that I would seek such private information as how BC determined my share of the cost. She actually stated "it's up to you" to figure that out. When I asked for help, Crisp admitted she could not figure it out either, and indeed it looked wrong to her. Incredibly, she managed to stay Crisp during this brief Admission Phase of our chat.

So she said she would ask a higher power to write to me "within 30-60 days" (The hospital is gonna be in a bad mood by then...up to 4 months from service, no payment from me. I kinda like that part.)

I'm wandering. Here's the point, if there is one...

I pressed on. "Where is the bill from the surgeon?" Crispy moved closer to Grouchy now. It was as if I had asked "What's your cup size?" How inappropriate. Finally, under gentle pressure, she rattled off some numbers. She ran through four names who got respectively $1900, $2800, and two got exactly $5000. (This was on top of the hospital's $21,000 and who knows what else.) Whoa there, Crispy. That last guy is the surgeon but the other three... just who are they? She then morphed directly to Ms.Snotty and s-l-o-w-l-y explained that in a hospital there are behind-the-scenes folks looking out for me, and I could never understand just what they might actually do.

I suggested it might be in BC's interest for customers to actually know who gets paid for what, and perhaps even question it, since BC is paying the majority of the money to these cats. She snapped back into Crisp persona and our time together came to an abrupt close.

Which left me wondering... maybe Bush has a point. As a NY Times piece cogently argued a week ago, a big factor in the medical cost difference between the USA and Europe is what the doctors rake in here. Post the chart. Let the sun shine in.

Ps. I investigated a little and found that the other $5000 went to the surgeon's partner. $5000 for each of them, for four hours. I think Gershwin said it: Nice work if you can get it.